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History of the Commonwealth

In July 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) set out to stabilise and secure Rwanda, a country decimated by genocide. This mandate was later extended to include the herculean task of promoting unity and reconciliation to a population torn apart by violence. More than two decades later, these goals appear to have been achieved. Beneath the veneer of reconciliation lies myriad programmes and legislation that do more than seek to unite the population - they keep the RPF in power. In Reconciling Rwanda: Unity, Nationality and State Control, Jennifer Melvin analyses the highly controversial RPF and its vision of reconciliation to determine who truly benefits from the construction of the new post-genocide Rwanda.

This is the record of the sixth of the later series of Witness Seminars or Conferences held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in conjunction with the Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association. The first four were designed to give OSPA members and other interested people an opportunity to share with an academic and non-academic audience their views and experiences relating to the end of the colonial period and the early stages of independence (the ‘End of Empire’), thus contributing to the overall Colonial Service record. The ‘witnesses’ in the fifth one were mainly people from the former dependent territories who themselves experienced the change from colonial rule to independence. This sixth ‘Conference’ relates to the later post-...

This is the record of the fifth of the series of Witness Seminars held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in conjunction with the Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association. The seminars were designed to give OSPA members and other interested people an opportunity to share with an academic and non-academic audience their views and experiences on topics relating to the end of the colonial period and the early stages of independence (the ‘End of Empire’) thus contributing to the overall Colonial Service historical record. This fifth seminar differed from the four earlier ones in that the “witnesses” were not former British colonial officers but were people from the former dependent territories who experienced the change from colonial...

This is the record of the seventh of the series of Witness Seminars held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in conjunction with the Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association. The seminars were designed to give OSPA members and other interested people an opportunity to share with an academic and non-academic audience their views and experiences on topics relating to the end of the colonial period and the early stages of independence (the ‘End of Empire’) thus contributing to the overall Colonial Service historical record.

This is the record of the third of the series of Witness Seminars held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in conjunction with the Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association. The seminars are designed to give OSPA members and other interested people an opportunity to share with an academic and non-academic audience their views and experiences on topics relating to the end of the colonial period and the early stages of independence (the ‘End of Empire’). The seminar thus contributes to the overall Colonial Service historical record.

This is the record of the second of the new series of Witness Seminars held by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in conjunction with the Overseas Service Pensioners’ Association. The seminars are designed to give OSPA members and other interested people an opportunity to share with an academic and non-academic audience their views and experiences on topics relating to the end of the colonial period and the early stages of independence (the ‘End of Empire’). The seminar thus contributes to the overall Colonial Service historical record.